What does it mean to "read a URL" in PHP?

To "read a URL" in PHP means to retrieve the contents of a webpage or resource from a given URL. This can be done using PHP functions like file_get_contents() or cURL to make an HTTP request to the URL and fetch its content. Once the content is retrieved, it can be processed, parsed, or displayed as needed in the PHP script.

$url = "https://www.example.com";
$content = file_get_contents($url);

// Display the content of the URL
echo $content;